Re: SUO: RE: Re: Missing Ingredients
Richard Cooper wrote:
> John F. Sowa wrote:
>
>>Richard Cooper wrote:
>>
>>RC> John, can you be more explicit about how we can 'directly
>>
>>>address context'?
>>
>>I consider contexts to be as large or as small as you like.
Yes, from the galactic down to the subatomic, quite literally.
>>In conceptual graphs, I represent a context by a concept box
>>that contains a nested CG. The context consists of anything
>>that may be described by a CG. Since a CG can be arbitrarily
>>large or small and it can describe large things and small
>>things (by any literal or metaphoric definition of size),
>>almost anything could be a context.
>>
>>If you would prefer English to CGs, I would say that a context
>>may be anything that you can describe by an English sentence
>>of any size. (And I would permit as many clauses as you like
>>to be connected by semicolons.)
>>
>>John
>
> I like that as a rough approximation. I'm thinking in terms
> of a question-answering system equipped with an initial
> ontology. I define: there is a context C[k] for the Kth sentence
> which describes just what is in that sentence itself. Also,
> there is a context C[*] for the preceding k-1 sentences that has
> developed from the first sentence in the session. So context
> is a running database.
>
> Given that scenario, context should designate the individuals
> (by which I mean objects of interest) that are being tracked
> by the computer's side of the conversation.
>
> To be a little more specific, consider WordNet (or Cyc, or
> others) as a basis for the QA system. Presently, neither
> of these comes with a software envelope to process the axioms
> and the data developed during the conversation. That envelope,
> in the scenario I'm considering, should be the QA system, and
> some of the results of that QA system should be:
> - improved feedback from operators as to the accuracy
> and validity of the present ontology,
> - improved world knowledge,
> - measure of effectiveness of the session.
>
> This is the minimum set of requirements for a system that
> can provide a useful service while growing its knowledge
> base through situated interaction.
>
> The context is either committed (if the MOE is adequate) or
> deleted (if the MOE is high enough).
>
> Of course, there need to be other things, such as "normal"
> behavior scripts, various "emotional" drive simulations, and
> other mechanisms that mimic linguistic behaviors on the
> part of the QA system.
>
> Does that sound like a reasonable (though difficult) project
> to build an ontology from multiple users through conversational
> interaction?
I saw such a system functional in 1979 at SRI. Turns out that
the Cyc ontology is created by the same guy - Doug Lenat. If
you consider the amount of time it's taken to develop Cyc, the
enormity of it, the development time to create the NL front end,
well, I don't know if that's "reasonable" or not. But I don't
know if your system could be as functional as Cyc without some
level of similar complexity. It may be that Cycorp is giving
away the ontology (or at least we're hoping they will someday,
results seem to be mixed), but they sell that "QA" system and
it's quite well developed.
Murray
...........................................................................
Murray Altheim http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/murray/
Knowledge Media Institute
The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK .
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